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Richard Alcala
Jon Beadle
English 115
October 2, 2016
Did You Just Assume my Gender?
Did you just assume my gender? A meme almost as popular as Harambe, but has anyone
really taken the time to think about the true meaning about this meme. The gay community has
been around for years and is well established. They have faced many issues thru out the years,
but new questions in todays world have come up more and more often. In todays world the
main topic everyone argues about is Gender and sex. How is gender developed? Why is gender
not the same thing as sex? But the main question is, how is gender developed thru society or are
you just born with it?
How is gender developed? One may ask a random stranger and would not get a response
or theyll tell you its thru sex. Thru research people have discovered that gender is developed
thru society. Gender identities act as cognitive filtering devices guiding people to attend to and
learn gender role behaviors appropriate to their statuses. Learning to behave in accordance with
ones gender identity is a lifelong process. (Aaron Devor Pg.35) In simpler terms, we as human
beings learn by imitation and curiosity. Gender is built up by our parents, the people around us,
and even our environment. Which brings us to how is gender determined by sex.
Is gender really determined by sex? When a baby is born, we all know that the doctor
tells us the sex by looking at the gentile. Sex and gender are two very different things but are
relatable to each other. The only difference is that one is biological and the other social as we
discussed in the last paragraph. Gender construction starts with assignment to a sex category on

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the basis of what the genitalia look like at birth. (Judith Lorber Pg.20) The majority of the
people around the world accept who they are in life, because thats how society brought them up
to be, but they are others that feel different with who they are. The reason being that people and
the environment around them showed them a whole different world that they like and are
comfortable living in. This brings us to a new question, why is gender not the same as sex?
Gender is not the same as sex. As we learned sex is just the beginning steps to building
who you are. You see Gender and sex are not equivalent, and gender as a social construction
does not flow automatically from genitalia and reproductive organs There is no argument that
could be made that Gender is not social constructed. But they are some people that feel sex is the
same as gender.
Sex is the same as gender. Mostly everyone accepts who they are. Which is true, because
thats how society brought them up. But we also need to think about the ill. The transgender
community are people that are mentally ill, according to France and England. Many countries
around the world has made the decision that transsexuality is a mental illness, France and
England being one of those countries. Today thats a thing of the past, in todays modern world
theres still some questioning about the mental illness thing, but were moving ahead according to
Drescher. Drescher says that France has removed transsexuality from its list of psychiatric
disorders and put it in the category of rare diseases. (Barbara Kantrowitz and Pat Wingert
Pg.70) France may be behind but there making the right decisions from thinking in the past and
thinking ahead. The British government has also declared that transsexuality is not a mental
illness (Barbara Kantrowitz and Pat Wingert Pg.70) The British government has come to an
understanding that Transsexuality is not a mental illness and has also given the people the right if
they want get treated thru the National Health Service.

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The authors purpose of writing about this delicate topic is to give understanding on how
the world works and why some people go thru some life changing procedures, that may help
them or not. To teach people that gender is something that you learn thru life is something that is
important because they are some parents that see themselves as failures for not raising their
children correctly, one can understand that the pain they feel is unbearable, but we as the human
race have to learn to accept others or will just die out hating everything we want to be and do. To
be aware how transgenders identify themselves. This something that can offend anyone, because
they spend hard earned money to become a boy or a girl, but still identified as a different gender.
Some of which still feel that they are not the gender they want to be because of past memories.
To show that transsexuality is not a mental disease, some may still feel that it is, but is it not,
they were brought up the same way as we were and we have to understand that its alright to be
different. Especially in world like ours that everyone is the same boring person from the start.
Throughout my life I had many encounters with sex and gender. Wondering if that boy
was a boy or a girl. Out of all of the exercise that I have had throughout my life, the one that I
think about the most after learning about gender, would have to be. When I went to Mexico, me
and my family go to Mexico almost every year and before we leave. We would go to a city called
Tonala, they would sell all types of things from toys to even chickens that you can keep as pets.
As me and my mom went looking around for some paintings, with no luck we went outside and
we stumbled into a man. We taught he was a man but were wrong, in fact he was actually a
woman. A man that became a woman. As we apologized for walking into her, she offered us a
lollipop, but we declined. We watched him walk away with a feminism posture. From that day
on, I was able to understand that many people are happy with who they are and not to judge
based on look. All I remember after that was that my mom made a joke about what just

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happened, but told me that if wanted to make the same life decision as him. That she wouldnt
judge me.
Is gender developed thru society or are you just born with it? To answer that question in
simplest terms, Yes. Why is gender construction so important? It gives us a better understanding
on how we grow up to be the person we are when we reach adulthood, everything stays with you,
just like your habits of biting your nails or cracking your knuckles. How would you feel when
you do gender correctly? And No Im not triggered

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Works Cited
Devor, Aaron Becoming Members of Society: The Social Meanings of Gender, Composing
Gender, edited by Rachael Groner and John F OHara, Bedford, St. Martins, 2014, pp.
35-43
Kantrowitz, Barbara and Wingert, Pat Are We Facing a Genderless Future? Composing
Gender, edited by Rachael Groner and John F OHara, Bedford, St. Martins, 2014, pp.
68-71
Lorber, Judith Night to His Day: The Social Construction of Gender Composing Gender,
edited by Rachael Groner and John F OHara, Bedford, St. Martin, 2014, pp. 19-30